Not All Truly Die
by Ihsan997
Summary: Misanthropy and genius can be a deadly combination...a chance act of kindness toward an interned necrolyte on the part of one battlemage begins a journey to damnation. For such people, that destination might not be so bad...
1. Red Dots

**A/N: hello, dear readers! Welcome to the sort of origin story of one of my continuums of OCs. Don't worry; you DO NOT need to read my other stories for this one to make sense. Of course, I would love it if you do, but I won't force anybody to. Also unlike my other stories which I write beginning to end before posting, this is one I'll just post as I write at my own leisure. So unlike the guaranteed Saturday updates every single week for the next four years on my other stories, this one will be updated whenever I have the time to write another chapter.**

 **For reference, this story takes place around the beginning of the World of Warcrsft but before the Burning Crusade expansion. And for anyone wondering...yes, the protagonist here is the brother of the protagonist in my story "Where Angels Rush In," though neither continuum intertwines. Enjoy!**

"Barghash, you'll knock over the beaker!"

Despite the protests of the gnome proprietor, the stern yet young looking human continued organizing the shelves in the Dustwind magic supply shop using rapid, almost violent hand movements. Vials of reagants and jars of various arcane extracts quickly fell into place after browsing customers had shifted them around, protests of the relatively young gnomish mage (though her diminutive stature might have added to her younger appearance) be damned.

"You hired me to do this job," he replied, teetering on the edge of proper respect when addressing one's employer. "It will be done, and it will be done efficiently. That was my guarantee to you."

As the human had expected, he'd rearranged all the glass items without incident and moved on to reorganizing the tomes by author's name fast enough to make the gnome's head spin. "Oh! Well...just be careful, alright?" she requested of him.

He bit down on a small measure of resentment; did she mean to insinuate that he wasn't careful sometimes? "Understood," he replied, hurrying to finish his work once the latest customer had finally left.

Life in the Badlands could be monotonous. Mineral wealth kept the locals taken care of materially, subsisting off of imported food and other goods. Filling in one's free time, however, was the main difficulty. Some turned to collecting stamps and postcards in order to pass the time; others met at the small handful of restaurants in the budding town to discuss current events as news from around the world arrived (always two weeks late). Others simply spent their time drinking.

Barghash, on the other hand, could never find enough free time. Even after his sister had moved away to become a missionary, leaving him alone in the rent controlled apartment they'd once shared, the young man always found ways to busy himself. Having at one time attempted to join the priesthood himself, he'd eventually dropped out due to perceived lack of discipline (ironically like his sister, he'd tried to specialize in the school of discipline). Though he'd never give the class a second try, he did quite enjoy pouring over the books on healing spells. Not that he was interested in healing...reading on the process of death and injury grounded him when it often made others feel uncomfortable. Understanding one's own mortality aided in preserving it.

When he wasn't studying tomes on healing for purposes other than healing, he was most often engrossed in his books on military history. Strategies, formations, the names of the greatest generals...he'd even taught himself passable Thalassian and Orcish for the purposes of learning the ways of war of other races. What he wouldn't give to somehow see those old warriors again; to ask them for their tales, to learn from their mistakes. It was merely a hobby his sister had always found quaint, but to him, memorizing those organized formations that had worked for commanders past fascinated him almost as much as the magic shop he worked at.

The people in the shop, he could do without sometimes. His employer, Desdemona Finklesnap, not only possessed a name nobody could forget but also a certain flair for engaging in long, drawn out discussions with the shop's patrons. As Barghash recounted a shelf full of frost powered astrolabes, he could almost remember the last limp wristed fop who Desdemona had wasted half an hour chatting up only for the sale of a few glacial catalysts.

To be fair, Barghash owed the tiny woman much; after all, most magic using classes depending on magi at least for their basic training. Priests, warlocks, paladins - all of them tended to flock to a mage at the beginning of their training to learn the fundamentals of ley lines and tapping into one's inherent mana pool. Although he was still undecided as to what he wanted to learn specifically, he knew it would involve magic. Skilled with a blade and comfortable in metal armor, he often dreamed of becoming a battlemage one day; one of the reasons why he disliked the shop's customers so much was their lack of ruggedness and aversion to physical labor.

How glorious it would be to wield a sword while setting enemies ablaze, if only he was interested in pyromancy.

How stupendous it would seem to freeze a foe in a block of ice only to shatter them to pieces with a maul, if only he was interested in cryogeny.

How fantastic it would feel to incapacitate one's interlocutor with a hatchet and then watch their ragdoll body fly from the force of an arcane blast, if only he was interested in pure magic for magic's sake.

Every time he read about one of the recognized schools of magic, he finished whatever book he'd opened feeling disappointed. He never judged others for their interests...he didn't care to. But he did have the right to pursue his own interests, if only he could find them.

A pair of arcane proof gloves used for handling unstable crystals had been tried in and then left on the shelf turned inside out. Biting down on a nasty curse word, Barghash calmed himself down by donning the gloves to fix them and imagining the himself crushing the offending buyer's head between his index finger and thumb. Lack of organization drove him mad, and carelessness could push him to harsh words. He could feel Desdemona's eyes on him as he fumed; no matter how much unsolicited mentoring she delivered, she also acknowledged that Barghash was the best person she could have hired. Whenever the dour apprentice who was mature and cynical beyond his years was on duty, there was no need for the presence of town guards; even the local dwarven miners tended to step out of his way when they saw him.

And no matter how much Barghash was irritated by unsolicited mentoring, Desdemona was also one of the few people he found it impossible to be mad at.

"Barghash, it's getting late," she announced from behind the counter once he finished checking that every item in the shop had been returned to its proper place. "You can go ahead and check out. Job well done today."

Giving the shop one final look for any irregularities as if it was his own personal establishment, he stepped backward so he was straight across the counter from her. "Thank you, Demi," he replied before pulling his dark magenta apprentice robe from the rack near the door.

"And try to lighten up, will you!" she chortled after him as he stepped out into the sandy, barren streets of Dustwind.

He pulled the hood over his head and surveyed the relatively empty roads of the poorly planned town before starting on his way home. "I tried that before...it didn't work out so well," he chortled back, too quiet for her to hear.

Dusk approached as the apprentice walked down the wooden sidewalks lining the dirt roads. Why a city council of a city in the desert would use a scarce resource like wood for a beaten walkway was beyond him, but he didn't make a habit of asking questions. Head low and mouth shut, he'd learned from the mistakes of others despite never having been in trouble himself. During his childhood he'd done his fate share of mischief, but not until he saw someone else do so first; and when he copied them, he always did so faster, more skillfully and more stealthily, learning lessons when his friends were caught stealing, fighting or painting their names on buildings at night. To learn from the errors of others was much preferable to him; he'd rarely faced the wrath of authority and enjoyed keeping his life that way.

Though as he passed a side road in the desert town of stone buildings, a peek toward the barracks and prison tucked in between two workshops reminded him of those rare occasions when he was willing to face that wrath.

"She's squirming, she's squirming!"

"Come on guys, that's a little too far, don't you think?"

Barghash slowed his pace until he came to a virtual stop. Keeping one's head down and mouth shut had its limits. The group of six people down the street that ended with the barracks didn't notice him at first, his robes mostly matching the beaten, dried soil of the dirt roads in the Badlands. A growl deep in his throat garnered the attention of at least one of them.

Four local citizens - a relatively young gnomish couple and two of his fellow humans - were crowded around one of several metal cages suspended from tall wooden posts for the purposes of embarrassing criminals. One of the cages had been lowered to the ground, partially blocked from his view due to the two armored footmen standing in the way. Both of them appeared rather amused by the flash of shifting rags inside though the four civilian bystanders didn't appear to find it a laughing matter.

Not that any of them made any move to stick up for the distraught orc matron inside, however.

A remnant of an unnamed clan, the sole survivor of a group of interned orcs from the Second War squirmed as one of the two guards poked her with a stick. Although a truce had been reached with the Horde after the recent end of the Third War, not all orc clans were members of the faction. That didn't bode well for the few remnants left in the Badlands, who were left without any allies in the world. As the only interned orc who hadn't starved to death, the old woman was mostly relegated to staring out of her cage blankly, granted only an hour a day to exit and roam about the practice yard of the barracks in addition to infrequent bathroom breaks. The fact that she hadn't succumbed to madness after all the torment a handful of less educated, more racist guards subjected her to was a testament to true tenacity.

One of the two human civilians tried to wave his hand in the air in between the more aggressive guard and the cage. "Officer, you've made your point; doesn't she need to sleep now?" the older gentleman tried to reason.

A hard stare from the footman caused the older man to slowly back away. "Mongrels don't need sleep," the barely eighteen year old guard replied.

"That probably explains why you spend all night at the tavern touching yourself and wondering why everyone pinches their noses when you walk by."

While it wasn't the most creative insult, it was hurled with such audacity that the entire group turned around. Barghash held his empty hands outward to show that he bore no weapons, but walked toward the guard in a manner so aggressive that the youth might have had legal grounds for swinging his mace in self defense. The four other civilians quickly backed away, allowing the two men the space they needed for a staring contest so heavy that it practically filled the entire side street with its palpable tension.

Refusing to break away his gaze and tapping into a level of stubbornness that only members of the Narume family seemed to attain, Barghash scowled without fear of reprisal until the guard laughed nervously at his companion. "Sounds like another townie needs a lesson in manners," the youth forced himself to snicker. His attempt at mockery came off as fake, and even the other civilians failed to be intimidated.

Barghash didn't need to resort to exploiting his reputation; a bully with a badge like this one was far easier to deal with than the rare but not unheard of captain or lieutenant possessing such sadism. "You lay a finger on me and anyone here and I'll sue you in the regional court until your daddy goes bankrupt, little boy," the magic shop apprentice growled without a hint of restraint even when the second guard laid a hand on the hilt of his mace. "You lay another finger on that woman and I promise you that you will not pass a single person on the street in a hooded robe without wondering if they're about to kick you in the spine when you walk by."

The guard's eyes grew wide, a bit of real anger shining through momentarily. "You just threatened an officer of the law!"

"Prove that I threatened to snap your vertebrae when you're off duty by myself, rather than just predicted what somebody else might do to you."

"Knock it off, Narume," the second guard, older and more weathered, said a little less nervously.

Narrowing his eyes at the older guard, the apprentice refused to back down. "Officer Garamonde, you have three counts of excessive force against three other people on your record. If daddy's boy here touches that woman again I'm going to do something that forces you to hit me. And if you hit me, then with a checkered past like yours the city council will accept my testimony that it was unprovoked." The four other civilians began creeping away, leaving the apprentice to continue his battle of wills against the two officers with suddenly deflated egos. "Control mister short dick here or I will force you to defend your very position."

Before the younger guard could move to start yelling, a loud, throaty cough emitted from his mouth despite the fact that tobacco wasn't available in their town. Garamonde took the opportunity to grab the younger man by the shoulder and shove him toward the barracks, but paused to give Barghash an expression that was a mixture of frustration, resignation and acrimony.

"Watch yourself, Narume," Garamonde warned. "I really don't have a problem with you, but...nobody can walk the line forever without crossing it."

Barghash didn't show a hint of a reaction as he watched the two men walk just outside the door to the barracks to engage in a hushed argument. "I'm more aware of that than you," the apprentice muttered under his breath, trying to rationalize the exchange based on the fact that he and Garamonde truthfully hadn't ever argued unless the younger guard was around.

Once the two of them became engrossed in their heated discussion, interspersed by the younger guard's occasional hacking fits, Barghash looked down at the green skinned woman that had become the unofficial punching bag when the commander of the city guard wasn't around.

Wrapped in dirty, sweat stained prisoner's rags, the grey haired orc huddled in the far corner of her tall, rectangular cage. Her eyes were shut tight and she hugged her knees to her chest, folding in on herself in a manner which looked so unbefitting of a person of age. Even if she'd been their enemy once, she deserved better; perhaps a more spacious cell than a group of other orc prisoners, or some sort of a palace imprisonment where she was given a proper bed in return for entertaining an Alliance commander in the occasional philosophical debate. Being caged like an animal and poked with a stick felt more evil than an act of warfare; execution would have been more benevolent.

Kneeling down so he didn't loom over her so much - he surmised that she'd be quite a bit shorter than him were she allowed to stand - he looked her over as she cowered. He'd defended her from local youths and the occasional abusive guard before, but he'd never taken a good look at her; he wondered if she recognized his voice as that of the person who often spoke up in her defense. Most orcs understood Common rather well, especially those in internment camps. Dustwind was no camp, but she and the initial group of four had been held there for years; Common was likely the only language she ever heard now.

Searching in the pocket of his robe, he pulled out a piece of cheese wrapped in a bag that he'd been saving for his dessert. Though she was mostly covered, he could tell from the sinews in the tops of her hands that she was underfed. After a moment of translating the words in his head, he spoke Orcish out loud for the first time, based on the translation manual he'd used to read the accounts of the Second War that members of her race had written. He'd obtained them through his sister, whose missionary work cut across factions, but he'd never tried to pronounce the language before.

"Please...you should eat," he whispered to her in Orcish, smiling in delight when she peeked at him from behind her folded arms.

Terrified, pleading eyes looked at him, shining with an intelligence he didn't detect in most of his own people. Her eyelids trembled though whether from fatigue or fear, he didn't know. Too frantic to focus well, her gaze darted from his to the cheese and back to his again. Dairy was a delicacy in the wastelands; the piece be held out to her was probably the first she'd seen in over a decade.

When she didn't budge, he placed the food at the bottom of her cage, his heart rate decreasing rapidly after the confrontation once he saw her loosen her posture. "It's not a trick," he whispered in her language again, surprised at how easy the pronunciation was. "I want you to have it."

Like a person truly stricken with poverty and need, she snatched the cheese with trembling hands and ate it entirely too fast, not savoring the flavor and swallowing most of it as if she'd lose it if she waited for too long. Immediately she folded her hands over her knees again, hiding her face from him as if she still halfway believed that he was going to hit her.

A grudge formed deep in his core as he shook his head at her sorry state. One's worst enemies didn't deserve such confinement; he would never comprehend why the commander had agreed to keep her locked up in the first place, considering the fact that the man at the top actually was an honorable person at his root.

Fearing that drawing out the moment would endanger her further, Barghash stood up and pulled the rope tied to the top of her cage. Running through a pulley, the piece of binding lifted her up off the ground, suspending the cage high enough such that none of the guards would be able to directly touch her again. She looked at him for a few seconds, her expression unreadable behind her forearms.

Just as Barghash was about to turn away, the younger guard - who'd still been standing outside the main doors to argue with his superior - fell into a harsher, more violent coughing fit. Nearly choking on air and saliva, the young man had to be helped into the barracks as his throat gurgled, disappearing behind the wooden doors.

That was when Barghash saw it.

Faint and fleeting, like a creeping shadow in the corner of one's eye when trying to sleep alone at night, the red lights flashed. So fast did they disappear that he almost thought he imagined it, but he was not the type to hallucinate or imagine such things. Those two red lights had glowed just where the orc's eyes had been, and the movement of her sleeves insinuated that she'd been peeking out when the red glow had flashed. Her head had shifted to face the door of the barracks even after her face had been hidden; despite her age, she could make subtle movements rather quickly.

Alone on the ground level of the little road, Barghash looked up at her a little while longer, wondering if she'd shift enough for him to spy her eyes again. They obviously weren't glowing now, but he wanted to be sure. Her light, almost pleasant snores rang out a second later, and exhaustion pulled the old woman into a deep, almost peaceful looking sleep despite her confinement.

Brushing the exchange out of his mind, Barghash continued on his way home, reminding himself to lay low for a week or so. He'd survived by avoiding direct conflict with authority figures so far; that day, he worried that he might have crossed the line sooner than he or Garamonde expected.


	2. Secret Keeper

Rows and rows of footmen stood base to base, forming solid lines on the field too organized for mortal troops to maintain. Stalwart and expressionless, they slid forward, sweeping the landscape as they met the grunts head on. Weapons and armor clashed, battle cries rang out and arrows and spears rained down on both sides from the respective rear units. Knights and raiders flanked the bulk of the grounded troops, trading melee and crossfire under the visual commands of the flag wavers on the tops of the hills.

Like clockwork, the troops went through the motions of laying their lives down for the sake of the overweight, over indulged commanders exchanging letters in tents. Their dishonest platitudes betrayed the blood spilt on the field, making a mockery of the soldiers on both sides, both solid lines of fighting men and women possessing valor and bravery unknown to those common folk working their farms and milking their livestock...so much collective experience, whether it be human or orc, wasted and lost forever, leaving the world robbed of all but a few of the tales of the truly initiated.

An immovable block was reached when the gryphons and drakes clashed overhead. One side reached the flanks first, but didn't so easily win the skirmish to early...but which side was it?

"Drat."

For a few seconds, Barghash continued to stare at the wooden figures he'd spent months carving. The terrain he'd drawn on the paper sheet covering his end table was generic enough to match any of the historic battles he recreated, yet to nondescript for him to keep track of individual unit movements for each and every single battle. Admitting defeat, he reached for the firsthand account of one of the local battles during the Second War and flipped through the pages of testimony about the aerial phase of the conflict in question. Although he had excellent eyesight, he'd spent hours of his only day off work alone in the apartment that was now solely his, and he struggled to skim the passage at his normal lightning speed. Setting the book back down on the empty bed opposite his own, he rubbed his eyes and checked the mechanical clock.

It was almost nightfall...aside from trips to the bathroom down the corridor of the wooden building, he hadn't left the confines of his single-room dwelling at all. As much as he would prefer to see the clash of his figurines through to the end, he knew better than to burn himself out at any task. Even his days off were structures: after his morning jog and breakfast, he spent three straight hours studying the foundations of mana management and spell manipulation. He was no longer a beginner even if he hadn't picked a specific school of magic to learn, but only the foolish neglected practicing the very basics. His afternoon nap was followed by setting up the battle reenactment, thus surrendering most of his day to study or sleep. As much as he detested dealing with people now that his sister had moved away, he knew of the benefits of interaction in an objective sense.

Leaving the figurines as they were, he grabbed a cloak, locked up and walked to a tavern in a different neighborhood, knowing that the irritating nature of the locals would eventually lead them to initiate interaction whether he liked it or not. It would force as his bitter dose of mortal contact for the one-day weekend, and he could get back to busying himself in more important pursuits thereafter.

The establishment was quiet as far as public eateries went, which was preferable. There were a few tables of people playing cards - marking down how much they owed for later since gambling out in the open was technically illegal - and a number of tired, lower class humans and dwarves sharing quiet conversations. Barghash sat at the bar and waited for the flitty looking Lordaeron refugee behind the bar to approach him.

"Good evening, sir! Pleased to see you here. Would you like to know our menu for the day?"

"Vegetable soup and yams are fine," he replied, trying his best to remain cordial even as the barkeep continued trying to force niceness upon him.

"Oh, our veggie soup is wonderful! We use this new seasoning that those purple elves brought from across the ocean, it's great. Hey Gus!" the barkeep tried to shout in an unimpressive voice. "We need a bowl of that veggie soup asap! And a couple of yams, too!"

A mixed group of mostly miners and surveyors walked in, shuffling past the bar to take their seats. Barghash recognized a number of them even if he didn't know their names; he'd spent most of his life in that town, and by then knew who was related to who simply from passing locals on the street so many times. Before he could ruminate on the other guests around him, the awfully cheery barkeep was weakly wrapping a knuckle on the bar.

"That will be two and a half silver, sir! We have to import a lot of those ingredients, you see."

"Yes, I'm sure," Barghash replied absentmindedly while fishing out the change from his satchel.

"We only purchase the finest here, and boy, do we have to go through a lot to receive our shipments all the way from the coast!"

"Here, exact change."

"Why, thank you kind sir!" the barkeep replied while counting up the change. Thankfully, a few more people had filed in at the bar, and soon enough Barghash was able to surreptitiously people watch and listen for news at his leisure.

As he'd come to expect in such a remote area as his, most of what he spied was trivial. Not that his desire to move to a bigger town was particularly pressing; he simply found the local happenings about Dustwind uninteresting. He could vaguely remember hearing about Second War era clashes with orc warbands during his childhood, but after those conflicts ended and the heroes in both sides were callously forgotten, the norm of boredom returned to the town. Who was getting married, who was getting divorced, whose sheep had been stolen, what the local preacher had said. At least there was occasionally talk of horses, which he was halfway interested in, though even too much of that would cause him to start daydreaming.

Only the slightly familiar voice of a middle aged human from the group of workers that had entered caught his attention with any significant force.

"Did you guys hear about old man Walters' boy?" the mature gentleman asked the group. "The one he was pushing the local captain to promote so quickly?"

"Didn't earn anything he's been given, that kid," replied a spot-covered dwarven woman.

"Watch it, old man Walters has a lot of pull around here," whispered another one of the dwarven miners.

"And maybe keep the criticism low...the boy's been hospitalized with some sort of...rot," the original speaker said, not realizing that his clear voice was easy to hear even when he tried to whisper.

A few of his friends murmured. "Gangrene?" asked the overworked dwarven woman in a heavy accent.

"Don't know. Doctors don't know, either. Old man Walters had him sent to-"

"Here's your dinner, kind sir!"

The barkeep's infuriatingly chirpy intrusion caused Barghash to dig his fingernails into the countertop, and he accepted the food without a word. The soup was too hot to drink, which was fine, since he now found that he had other things to focus on-

"I do hope that you enjoy your meal tonight - we aim to please!"

"Yeah, I'll let you know when I'm finished."

For a few seconds Barghash could feel the barkeep's eyes on him, as if waiting for another reaction. He tried to regain his bearings on the conversation behind him, attempting to tune out the ambient noise that existed even in a relatively subdued tavern such as the one he found himself in. The barkeep, however, seemed determined to force his cheeriness into the world.

"You know," the flitty refugee said, "it takes more muscles to frown than it does to smile-"

"It takes more muscles for you to tell me that than to leave me alone."

Although the barkeep continued smiling, his eyebrows arched upward like he'd been sincerely hurt. Which Barghash hoped for if it would shoo the irritant away from his vicinity. Once he was granted the solitude he'd wanted, he tried catching up on the conversation.

"...never tried the tobacco before, the boy claimed," said the well-spoken human gentleman. "But the rot started in his tongue and larynx all the same. They ended up shipping him to Duskwood, which isn't that great of a place but it's closer than most anywhere else. Word has it that the local priests took the case over from the herbalists and medics, and keep the kid holed up in some sort of special home."

"Like en asylum?" the dwarven man from before asked.

A few of the others at that table shifted uncomfortably. "Maybe this isn't the best place to hold this discussion," a younger human man muttered. Nervous laughter rang out among the others, and there was a silence that almost caused Barghash to turn around.

"Well...let's hope that it isn't a return of what we think it is," the original gentleman said.

The dwarven woman sounded quite upset at his comment. "What did the lad jest say!" she hissed, and Barghash could have sworn he heard the sound of someone being kicked beneath that table.

His soup was hot, but not scalding; it hurt his tongue at first, but he finished every last drop, every last onion shaving, and devoured one of his yams in record time. No concrete ideas had formed in his head, but he felt like he was losing time, to what he didn't know. Images from the week before played out, forgotten due to his focus on making sales at the mage supply shop but suddenly quite pertinent in his mind. Two red dots in the darkness teased him whenever he shut his eyes, and attempts to assure himself that he had imagined it all failed.

In spite of the increasing noise level as more patrons filed inside, a plan began to form. A plan that felt so silly, at first, that he didn't even dream it up in words. Pictures moved in his mind, flipping ideas about rotation schedules and the order of shops and houses on the roads. Reactively, he pulled his hand away from the last yam on his plate, the nutrient-rich skin still on the steaming vegetable. Subtly, he took a kerchief from behind the bar when nobody was looking and used it to wrap the yam before walking out with it in the pocket of his robe. Hood up and head down, he slowed his pace and walked at an even pace; those who knew him well didn't recognize him and everyone else just passed on by as he walked toward the destination that was almost hazy in his mind.

Even after the sun had set, Barghash continued to stroll slowly and loiter around the location in question. He knew Dustwind well - too well, and he'd been there for too long - and had nearly memorized every communal residence in the top floors, every shop and storehouse in the bottom floors, and every twist and turn in the alleyways. Though it wasn't a large town, Dustwind was crowded enough for there to be plenty of alternate routes and hiding spots for him to exploit were he to dance too closely to the line once more.

And dance he did. For he stood, more than a few hours, waiting for the last of the evening shift of the city guard to return to the barracks and pass the torches on to the night shift.

An unused storage unit built into one of the city blocks featured an entrance only in the alleyway across from the practice yard of the barracks. There he hid, unviewable even if the lights were shined directly on him, waiting and watching as the last armored footmen joked and chatted in the practice yard before returning to their homes. Dummy targets and blunt, harmless practice weapons laid in racks and the grass had been trampled, but the unused stocks and mostly unused cages looked well maintained in the absence of many prisoners in such a remote area. Only a single cage hung suspended above the ground, swinging back and forth as just the slightest slack of tattered fabric hung out between the bars.

The last group of footmen finally dispersed after what felt like an eternity. Were it not for his insomnia, Barghash would have started to feel drowsy, and for once he was grateful for the fact that his mind always felt more alert when gentler folks were locked up indoors. Until the familiar face of Garamonde finally passed him, he waited, and then waited some more until all he could here were the caws of the crows that tended to haunt the rubbish bins at night. Even so, he hugged the faceless brick walls of the armories adjacent to the barracks, sticking to the shadows and moving as swiftly as the rats fleeing into the cracks and crevices in the surrounding buildings. A bit of red dust was kicked up from the desert outside the town fence, but otherwise his presence was unnoticeable as he infiltrated the practice yard.

The same cage he'd spied when confronting Garamonde and the Walters boy hung high from the to of its post; too high for him to comfortably peek inside, but closer to the wall of the adjacent armory for it to be an effective cell for all but the most feeble of prisoners. With a single jump, Barghash reached and grabbed onto the gutter lining the edge of the roof and parkour flipped himself up top. The roof was slanted and he leaned back comfortably, finally able to see that the prisoner had been aware of his approach even if the footmen hadn't.

He nearly slipped and fell back down to the ground at first. Those old, weary eyes tinged with a bit of fear proverbially slapped him across the face; his situational awareness was exceptional, and he wasn't used to being watched even by such a miserable, debilitated captive. But there the old woman was, awake and alert and already staring at him by the time he turned to face her. She'd almost appear to be in a sort of despair state slumped against the opposite side of her hanging cage were it not for the fact that she seemed genuinely curious as to his presence. For sure, not all of the guards were abusive toward her; the great lot of them simply ignored her, just as Barghash had for most of his life in the town. The kindness he'd shown her a week prior was probably the first such act anyone had ever shown her, for certainly the slop they normally fed her once a day wasn't understood to constitute an act of charity.

Intending to end the silence in the same way as he had the last week. Unfurling the cooked yam from his robes, he held it out to her. The cage had been suspended so close to the roof next door that he could reach between the bars and straight into her cage if he'd wanted, but he knew it would only startle her. He held the vegetable just barely inside, keeping his hand out as he observed the way her sunken, fearful eyes peered at him. A measure of disgust at her treatment bubbled up again but he kept his expression blank in order not to startle her even more.

Gradually, the fear in her eyes transformed into suspicion and worry. After turning her head to see if they were being watched, she finally snatched the yam from him as if he was trying to trick her so he could grab her fingers. The old woman ate much as she had before, devouring the yam quickly as it if would disappear if she didn't eat fast enough. She settled into the back of her cage again, folding her arms around her knees and staring as if she didn't quite know what to say. She'd calmed down, having accepted acts of kindness from him twice, but the sense of worry didn't leave her tense demeanor.

Knowing that they really couldn't sit there forever into the night, he tried to pry, halfway hoping that he'd see in her eyes what he'd seen last week before he'd left. After mentally translating his monologue into Orcish, he cleared his throat and spoke the language for the second time in his life.

"My name is Barghash," he replied. Her eyes lit up at the sound of him speaking her mother tongue, but she didn't answer. "Barghash Narume. I live here, but my family was from far away."

There was something in the way she almost leaned forward toward him...it made him feel like she was observing him as much as he was observing her. "What's your name?" he asked, hoping to hear someone else speaking the language for the first time in his life.

No answer.

When she didn't reply, he tried to practice the lines he'd thought of while waiting in an effort to allay her suspicion. "I'm not like them...I won't hurt you," he continued, speaking slowly more to ensure his pronunciation was accurate than that she understood. "And I don't like what they're doing."

Like a slowly sinking dead fish in a bowl, her head tilted downward until she was staring at her own knees as she hugged them to her chest. Perhaps mentioning her captivity only depressed her, but he knew of no other way to establish the fact that he wasn't an enemy.

"I'm not...concerned with the fight between our peoples," he said, unaware of what the Orcish words for 'care about' or 'interested in' would be. "I'm not your enemy. And I can give you more food if you like." He paused for effect, waiting for her reaction. "Would you like that?"

Though she didn't look back up at him right away, she shifted her head such that her ear was facing toward him. He knew her interest had been piqued. "I know the schedules of the guards...I did a year of basic training and service myself, at an outpost remote even from here. I know when the guards are absent, and when I can sneak over to see you again...if you'll have me."

Sloth appeared to dominate her due to her monotonous imprisonment lacking stimuli, and she glanced up at him without moving her head. She looked at him for a long time, and he knew from the dreamy shine that she was considering what he'd said. This time when she stared at him, he waited her out; they both knew that they didn't have all night to engage in the awkward silence, but she was the one who stood to lose by shutting the conversation down.

Moving her head up, she swallowed a few times and grunted to clear her throat, licking her chapped lips. Her eyebrows furrowed and unfurrowed as if she didn't know what to make of the offer, or of his politeness. A strange glub sound gurgled in her throat, and he imagined that she hadn't spoken in a very long time.

"Why?" she croaked, her voice hoarse.

He couldn't prevent himself from smiling now; that single word was probably the most she'd said to anybody, and she said it to him. It was such a small act, yet it felt like a major step, and he wasn't about to delay his push any further.

"First, because a prisoner shouldn't be treated in such a way...especially one obviously of your experience level. It disgraces both you and us."

In reaction, the old woman pursed her lips into a tight line. Her expression was unreadable and he had a feeling that she did that intentionally. He had no idea what sort of emotions he was stirring up inside of her, but he knew of no other way to push for what he wanted. Once she appeared to have ruminated on his words for a few moments and drawn whatever conclusions she would, her expression softened, and her meekness came to the fore again as she listened for him to continue.

"Second," he said, "I want to know your secret. I want to know what happened to that asinine boy from last week." The orc's eyes widened but she quickly steeled her nerve, as if she'd been caught doing something wrong but then decided to play dumb. "I won't tell anybody...I'm not your enemy. But you should know, that boy's tongue and throat have begun to rot right out of his head. The doctors couldn't fix it, so the priests took him. He's gone now...but I saw. I know."

Fear crept up in the old woman again, and she hugged her knees even more tightly into her chest. "I don't," she croaked again, her voice still unpracticed but her demeanor much looser and perhaps even open.

Smiling again, he could almost sense the temperature rising as she warmed up to him. "I think you do," he said while wagging his finger, eliciting a puzzled look from her at his overt friendliness. "Don't worry, nobody will hear of it...nobody suspects it. But I saw your eyes. And...I want to see it again."

This time, her confusion pressed her so much that she almost crawled out of her shell, not at all appearing like the frightened prisoner she'd seemed like since literally the very first day Barghash had noticed her in captivity. "You don't know anything," she replied, her voice not only evening out as she spoke more but also gaining a bit of confidence as she tried to dismiss him.

"I know power when I see it...I know oppression when I see it...and I know hunger when I see it," he replied, keeping his demeanor the same even as hers rapidly shifted. "I will bring you extra food every single night. And I'll harass any guard who abuses you...I know the law here. I can make your life easier."

He knew he was being manipulative, true, but the result would be to her betterment and of no harm to his own people; Barghash had no regrets. A sort of miserable hope, if there was such a thing, shone in her eyes; like the shine of an abused cat being groomed and pet for the first time. Maybe she didn't want to believe him, but she would all the same; he knew she would.

"Would you like that?" he asked her, pushing her again.

For a split second, her lip almost quivered, and he feared that he'd manipulated the imprisoned woman's desperation a bit too much for his own good. Like a true orc, however, she quickly toughened up and pursed her lips again before speaking.

"Why do you want to know?" she asked right back.

Barghash paused and smiled, stalling to think about a question he hadn't even considered himself. Indeed, he hadn't even intended to actually speak to her prior to a few hours ago. Sneak food to her to fulfill his quote of good deeds, maybe, but not to ever talk to her. If he was honest with himself, he didn't quite know why; he'd spent the entire week engrossed in study and not thinking about the red flash in her eyes previously. But the way she'd shut up old man Walters' loudmouth of a son... _permanently_...intrigued him.

"I'm lost," he confessed, finally saying out loud the one thing he'd told to not a living soul aside from his long gone sister. "But I'm ready to find my way. And you...I saw it in you. You know a path that nobody else knows. I will help you...but will you lead?"

For the first time in the admittedly short conversation, he felt his sense of control slip away. His idleness, his boredom with life, his lack of direction in his magical studies...they were a weakness he didn't even readily admit to himself, much less somebody else. He felt less like a benefactor extending help on his own choice and more like a stereotypical apprentice throwing himself at the feet of some haughty Dalaran graduate that mainly just needed unpaid help in their arcanum.

But he wasn't a stereotypical apprentice...and the woman in the cage wasn't a Dalaran pencil neck.

"You read Orcish?" she asked, her tone of voice even and almost devoid of fear or apprehension.

"For several years," he replied. "I have first hand accounts from your clan about the battles they fought during the Second War."

Her eyes narrowed. "Where?" she asked in surprise.

"You mean, from where did I obtain them? When most of your clan fell, our educated class here preserved your books and artifacts. They're locked up in the library...this pitiful little building with one story and a cellar...wedged between old cartons of newsletters. They ban others from looking at them, but I was able to appropriate retellings of battles due to my...interests."

Rapid eye movement signaled that her interest was rising even more than when he'd offered her food. She appeared shocked upon hearing the news, but her posture straightens up like her old bones had been energized.

"It's been a long time...so long...my work..." Her voice trailed of into unintelligible mumbles, at least to his non-native ears. After muttering to herself like a crazy old cat lady for a moment, she looked back up at him. "You want to know my secret?"

"No...I _need_ to know," he replied, scooting closer on the edge of the roof. "I saw that power...and I need that. I need to know the path. And if you'll be my guide, then your life will become bearable."

Harsh words, but they were true; he knew she acknowledged that fact when she didn't react angrily to his comment on her situation. "Go to this place you mention...find what's written in my language. You'll search for three books...red covers...black trims. You _will_ know which three I mean when you see them." A hard edge entered into her expression, if not her weakened voice. "You want my guidance? Do what you promised, every single night...and don't talk about my secret again until you've studied the first book."

"How will I know which of the three comes first?"

Her frail, harmless body stiffened as if she suddenly felt she had the upper hand. She had nothing, and was dependent on him, but he'd let the poor woman inflate her own ego if it helped her to open up. "You'll know," she replied tersely. "Now go home."

At that last word, she crawled to the back of her cage and curled up again, facing away from him. He waited a few seconds before deciding not to push her if she'd regained a measure of confidence so quickly. His heart thumped in his chest like it never did save when he exercised, yet he'd only been receiving information. That felt more fulfilling, and in his silent excitement, he leapt back down to the ground. By the time he'd turned back around to glance at her one more time, she'd curled into a ball and appeared to be sleeping (or pretending to sleep).

The hour was late, and he had work the next morning. Pulling his hood back over his head, he left the woman who'd refused to give her name and walked home. He had a feeling that he'd need to make up tonight for sleep he'd miss tomorrow.

 **A/N: for those who follow my DA account and other stories, the prisoner here** ** _isn't_** **my OC Zulgha; there's an age difference of almost a century. No further hints as to the old orc woman's identity, though.**


End file.
